Jury Duty III: Summoned With A Vengeance

by Estee

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Queen Chrysalis, Slice of Life
Length: 6737

The good news: having her false ID summoned for jury duty means Chrysalis' disguise is perfect. The bad: running out on it would break her cover. (Why do queens always wind up with the hard decisions?)

Technically, the good news would be that the paperwork for Chrysalis' current disguise is so perfect, that cover identity can be summoned for jury duty. It's not just any changeling who can manage such a feat! Really, when you think about it, being called to serve on a trial would require a mistress of the art! And surely an entity who used to rule over her hive (and will get it all back and more, just you wait!) can deal with a simple matter of dealing out vengeance!

...justice?
...what? It's not as if there's any real difference.

(While this story is listed as a sequel, its only real connection to the previous tale is in theme, and so it can be read as a stand-alone.)

Now with author Patreon, SubscribeStar, and Ko-Fi pages.

Published 2018-12-30 03:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2018-12-30 03:40:01 UTC

In Which The Definition Of 'Peer' Has A Really Bad Day

Chrysalis considered herself to have a full understanding how rules worked, for it was very important that a queen know everything about what clearly didn't apply to her.

For example, a changeling entering a long-term deep cover assignment was certainly expected to follow certain rules. It was generally best to slip in, and most of the disguises used for doing so had the rough memorability of cheap hotel room wallpaper. You didn't claim to be any part of the nobility, because books like Twerp's Peerage existed and so claiming to be a previously-uncharted twig on the family tree would always lead to a certain kind of pony sniffing around with upturned snout, looking to do some pruning. It was also best to be somepony entirely new, a total stranger: replacing a real citizen for more than a few minutes was a fool's errand, because you could never have all the information needed to truly impersonate the original. And you claimed to be from quite some distance off, which generally excused any minor slips in cultural expectations and left the changeling constantly hoping that nopony from that part of the world actually showed up.

You had to be very careful about which mark you chose to display, because there was always a chance that you would be forced to demonstrate a talent which you didn't actually have. (An intelligent changeling made their mark into something so boring that nopony would want them to demonstrate it, which had made it rather easy to infiltrate certain parts of the bureaucracy.) You made sure your new life guaranteed a regular period of total privacy, because no changeling could hold a disguise forever: even queens needed to rest, although much less often than the bulk of the hive. You kept your presence low-key, you found an entry-level position somewhere, you quietly worked your way up, and you made sure that every aspect of the false life came across as real -- which very much included that level known as 'official paperwork', because a changeling who was deeply entrenched enough to have a career was eventually going to wind up paying taxes.

You kept it subtle. You didn't call too much attention to yourself. You weren't anypony who stood out. You blended in.

Unless, of course, you were a changeling queen (the last true one, and finding a way to bring everyone else back to sanity was just a matter of time) and in that case, the rules which applied to deep cover agents? They just weren't suitable. Chrysalis herself, the last true queen, forced to sleep in a flophouse until she could find something suitable to rent? Doing some time as an intern, working for minimum wage while hoping that enough time of devoted service (which included the horrifyingly twinned implications of treating others as my superiors and ACTUAL WORK) would eventually gain her sufficient advancement to occasionally consider the purchase of fresh fruit? That was what the hive had to do, and Chrysalis was better than that. She had been hatched better, and she certainly saw no need to lower herself now. After all, she was the changeling who had successfully replaced a pony -- no, a Princess -- and with minimal study! She had just slipped into the identity of a pony whom an entire realm knew, and done so while having absolutely no concept of the term 'Nightmare Bride' and the way it automatically excused the most gentle of mares temporarily turning into (for lack of a more terrifying term) an absolute monster.

It certainly wasn't as if she'd just gotten lucky.

So in her case, she'd gone to her lone Secret Emergency Hive Tribute Stash (which she'd never thought she was actually going to need, but every queen was supposed to have one), and once she was solvent again...

A hive built its power base from the ground up. However, Chrysalis was meant to be at the top of that structure, and so she'd reentered Canterlot through picking up a place in the best part of town, something with a nice big central space which could host all the getting-to-know-you parties she needed. She let everypony know that there was new money in the city, and it liked to spend itself on gourmet dessert trays. And of course ponies were going to come and meet her, because she'd made sure she was beautiful, or at least what ponies foolishly considered beauty to be. She was, in her opinion, just about perfect -- as long as your perversion somehow ran away from chitin. (Anypony touching her shell would feel fur and flesh: she was just that good.) It was important to meet the right ponies or, in many cases, meet them again.

She smiled and she laughed and she paid for all of the drinks and she listened with a warm, completely empty, totally vapid smile as drunken ponies talked about things which a more sober individual would have remembered to shut up about. She displayed the approximate intelligence of a gnat, which encouraged ponies to spill secrets to somepony who couldn't possibly understand any of them. She had made a splash in Canterlot society equivalent to an adult dragon cannonballing into a caldera, and planned to eventually produce the same number of fatalities. Everypony loved her, at least until the hangovers set in. It provided enough sustenance to keep her alive, although the majority of the calories felt both rather empty and far too liquid.

Admittedly, when you were the capital's newest social sensation, there were certain considerations which the world's most intelligent being (herself) had to follow. For starters, she didn't have any servants: just a succession of temporaries who came in, cooked, cleaned, and left again. (She preferred to be waited on horn and wing at all times, but... she had to drop the disguise eventually, and she no longer had a hive full of those who could pass for pony retainers.)

She had chosen to be a unicorn, and resented every minute of it. Passing herself off as Cadance had given her some degree of access for her true capabilities, and she wanted that back -- but there were only so many alicorns, and she had somehow felt that the spontaneous appearance of a new one might lead to a little more palace attention than she might strictly enjoy. So now she couldn't fly, not in public: the disguise only hid her wings when they were in the resting position. Still, better that than being stuck moving things with her mouth.

She'd wanted to seem exotic, and so had decided that her disguise would be an immigrant to the capital. A pony who had been born in Equestria, but grown up among griffons. She wasn't entirely sure why some of her guests had poor reactions to the perfectly-fitting name, but generally assumed it had something to do with the local embassy staff.

And of course, she'd made sure her disguise had full legal backing. (Even with just about every deep cover agent exposed and none working for her, the route for doing so had remained open.) It was something you just naturally remembered to do, when you were the most intelligent being in existence. You did things perfectly. Identities were crafted not just in false sensory impressions, but from quill and ink.

So in a way, having that false identity receive a summons to jury duty could be seen as a compliment to her skills. And it remained so until that night's party, which was when Chrysalis learned what that duty actually was. Along with what happened if you didn't show up.

She was still reestablishing herself. Most of her funds were meant for the setup phase, and the blackmail money wasn't truly flowing yet. She didn't need to pay any fines. But when it came to serving... that was doing something which would essentially be working for Equestria, helping the enemy and, incidentally, doing so for a fully trivial rate of pay. Oh, and there was also this: a jury was apparently composed of a pony's peers. She'd never been so insulted in her life. But she still had to show up, if only to get out of it. And really, how hard could that be?

It could be said that she liked the small green earth pony mare who'd been so kind as to help her get through the check-in process, as much as she liked anypony. There were just some ponies who would make excellent post-conquest slaves. She tended to treat the most positive of interactions as early staff interviews and with that mare, had even gone so far as to consider some extremely artistic uses for the eventual bones because when you had a really good slave, you naturally wanted something to remember them by.

But she didn't like the courthouse, or the very stupid concept which it tried to house. Justice. Queens knew what justice was. You told the hive what to do, and then they did it. That was natural law, and it was just. Ponies, who didn't instinctively follow orders, tended to break that law. In response, you publicly broke a few ponies, and the ones who were still intact made the rather sensible decision to obey the law. It took a few minutes out of her day (which were classified as 'entertainment') and kept the wheels of justice so well-lubricated that she could lick them for a light snack.

Pony justice, however, liked to spread out. It had multiple moving parts, none of which made any sense. Yes, the accused was just about mandatory, but what was the point of a lawyer other than being somepony who might know all the facts about various criminals and thus be a font of blackmail material --

-- actually, lawyers seemed to have their points. Judges, however, were redundant. Chrysalis was alive and therefore no other judge was necessary. The same applied to the jury itself. Bailiffs could easily be replaced by statuary, although she was willing to double up on that if she found any whom she liked and had suitable bone structure. The audience -- well, there was a gallery and it might be filled in time: she usually didn't mind that part. A disguise was a performance, and there was no point in performing if nopony was going to watch. But in this case, she had no intention of taking the stage.

Pony justice spread out and in this case, she suspected it might decide to occupy several weeks. That potentially meant a lot of lost parties. But she wasn't going to be part of any trial.

She'd had to report: there had been no way out of it. She hadn't seemed to qualify for any automatic dismissal criteria and really, if she'd just done a little more research, the option to kidnap a dozen dependents would have opened right up. But when it came to not serving... she had a plan.

It was brilliant, of course. How could it be anything else? It was hers.

"Your name?"

It was, Chrysalis felt, an exceptionally pretty pony smile. She'd even remembered to conceal the sight and smell of her last solid meal. (Technically, you could live on love alone, but it didn't do much for adding body mass. Besides, keeping it up for too long, especially with a single source, tended to leave her with residual feelings for whoever she was feeding on. A variegated diet was necessary to cut down on nausea.) And her voice was happy and chirpy and contained what she saw as the approximate average intelligence of a pony, which was to say pretty much none. "Merry Suet!"

The judge winced.

"I grew up in Protocera!" Chrysalis chirped. "Around their foodstuffs. So you may not know about this hard white fat which some of the edible monsters get on their kidneys --"

Two prospective jurors broke from the box. One of them made it all the way to the trash bucket: the other didn't.

"-- yes, yes," the judge hastily cut her off. "But you're an Equestrian citizen." She nodded. "And what's your occupation?"

She vapidly giggled. "Oh, I don't occupy anything! That's too much like work!"

"...any hobbies?" the judge valiantly tried.

"Why hobby when you can party?" Chrysalis beamed. (The wide grin allowed a bit of hidden sinew to slip free from where it had been stuck between disguised fangs, and she happily slurped it down.)

"And have you read any newspapers concerning the case of --"

"Read?" This time, she laughed. "Why would anypony read boring old newspapers? Why do you need to know what's going on in the world? Isn't what's happening to you much more important? That's what one of my last party guests told me! That your life is about you!" Which was when she artfully added a lightly confused frown. "And I always listen to whatever a pony says. Because that's a very important pony, since they just spoke to me!"

There were about forty prospective jurors outside the box, along with a full courtroom staff and two lawyers. She effectively had the complete attention of the entire room, and would have been rather pleased by that if not for the irritating exception of the one who was still intermittently vomiting.

"A lot of ponies do that," she brightly continued, heading for her big finish. "And sure, some of them contradict each other, but then there's an easy answer. You just go with the last one!"

She happily adjusted her position on the bench, fluffed the fur she didn't have, and waited for any next question which the pony idiots might be stupid enough to ask. After all, based on the rather minimal research she'd done, a jury was supposed to consist of those who were capable of weighing evidence. Nopony was going to want somepony so silly as to just believe the last thing she'd been told!

Both lawyers seemed to be smiling. Chrysalis wondered if they'd realized she was planning to invite them to her next party.

"-- and Miss Suet, you have the twelfth and final bench."

She fumed all the way to the inadequately-padded wood, because ponies were too stupid to tell when somepony was too stupid. She wasn't entirely sure how they'd managed that, and so also had no idea how they did it all the time.

"Very well," the judge said. "Now this is the case of Equestria Versus --"

She stopped listening. Names were only important if the entity using them was, which meant hardly any living being in the world qualified. She had no intention of paying attention to anything in the case. The best way to get through her durance -- well, the best way which didn't involve a full-scale massacre -- was to zone out through most of it. She could maintain a disguise in her sleep, and was probably about to. Adding open, occasionally-blinking eyes to the sensory falsehoods might be a minor challenge, but when viewed as a test of her skills...

She didn't care about the case. Oh, there was a chance of a vaguely interesting crime. There might have been bodies involved, although even the most hivelike of ponies tended to be oddly squeamish regarding the remains. Maybe somepony had failed to conquer Equestria: that would give her a good dark laugh, along with the chance to take a few internal notes. However, when it came to things like assault and thievery... she just didn't care. To her, all ponies were criminals, and the charge was Not Acknowledging Chrysalis As Our Queen. She wanted to get out of this case so she could get back to that one. So as far as Chrysalis was concerned, she would sleep, and then she would vote with the majority. Unless the majority was more stupid than usual.

It was ponies, it was their idiotic concept of how justice was created, and so Chrysalis simply didn't care. She just wanted to get it over with, and to do so with what she would have once considered to be a surprising minimum of casualties.

But there were some words which couldn't help but get a changeling's attention.

"-- and twenty-seven counts of identity fraud."

She blinked. (So did her disguise. She was, after all, just that good.)

"We will," the judge continued, "now bring in the defendant."

The courtroom doors opened. Two bailiffs escorted a pony in.

And that was when Chrysalis truly began to pay attention.

It was just a fact: changelings and ponies didn't fully share facial expressions. There was the basic difference in species, plus chitin didn't shift in the same ways as flesh. For Chrysalis to truly smile would have meant a lot of little plates more or less sliding across each other. It became uncomfortable after a while. And then there was the sound. Most ponies reasonably wouldn't have been expecting the rasping.

So a deep cover agent going into pony society would have to do some advance study, making sure the proper responses could appear on their disguise. This is a frown. Here's what deep doubt looks like. Eyebrows are raised thusly and incidentally, this is an eyebrow. It took some time to get everything right, and no one was allowed to infiltrate until they were eyelash-perfect on all of the details.

To Chrysalis, the defendant ('light grey unicorn stallion' registered with her, and not much else) came across as something very much like a changeling, except for two things: his complete lack of hive-identifying t'fin'zi, and his smile. When it came to smiling, he had consulted the wrong group of hard-won photographic instructions, and so had gone into the world bearing something much closer to a smirk.

Those who didn't share the jury box with her (because it was hers by right of eventual conquest: they just happened to be there) seemed to be treating the trial as a mystery which they had to solve. Chrysalis couldn't do that, because it took very little of the trial for the world's most intelligent being to recognize exactly what had happened. Admittedly, she had the benefit of deep familiarity with the material, but the others hadn't had the common sense to be hatched as changelings and therefore their lack of knowledge was entirely their fault.

Being the only one who knew the answer was, of course, her natural right as a superior being. It was also making things exceptionally irritating, because nopony else was figuring it out. The only positive side to today's session...

"Twenty-seven cases of identity fraud," the prosecutor stated to the rather plain mare who currently occupied the witness bench. (Chrysalis knew something about pony appearance, and so also knew that this one just needed to have her coat decently groomed, find glasses which better framed her face, and there were things which could be done with the mane. However, her dress was rather nice, and decidedly expensive.) "Will you please examine this set of documents?"

The mare squinted a little. Nimble teeth nipped at page corners.

"I've looked at them," she shyly said.

"And as an expert," the prosecutor continued, "in fact, the expert, as the current head of the Records Office -- how would you describe them?"

She squinted again.

"They're not forgeries," she timidly stated. "These are original papers. I could show you the watermarks if somepony used their horn for a backlight. The stamps are also right, if not particularly well-placed. The mouthwriting isn't quite smooth enough..."

She dazedly blinked. Her ears briefly dipped.

"...for proper filing," she eventually continued. "But when it comes to the papers themselves... if somepony can bring in the right device, I could show you the unique magical residue. Being an earth pony --"

"-- but you recognize them as official," the prosecutor cut in. "Official documents."

"They were written on official papers," the mare tried. "They're not official themselves, Since it's a fraud case."

"This is the fifth set of twenty-seven," the prosecutor said. "Would you say all of them are on official papers?"

"Yes."

The stallion smirked at the jury. Several mares smiled back.

"And that none of them have duplicates recorded in the Canterlot Archives?"

"Nopony's found them..."

"The Records Office," the prosecutor sharply stated, "is one of the most guarded facilities in Equestria. It was converted from a fortress, one which was no longer needed for its original purpose. For security precautions, it ranks close to the mint, which isn't that far behind the palace. How would you describe an attempt to steal the base forms? As utterly impossible?"

"Objection!" called out the defense attorney. "She's a paperwork expert, not security! Goes to opinion and leading the witness!"

"Sustained," the judge quickly decided.

"I'll rephrase," the prosecutor tried. "During your tenure, have any forms been stolen?"

"We don't have records of any such thefts," the mare tried -- and then the slim body swayed.

"Are you all right?" the judge hastily asked. "Thirsty? You're allowed water."

"Just... tired," the mare replied. "I don't know why..."

As with all the other mysteries, Chrysalis already had the answer. The mare was tired because she was tasty. There was an intensity about her, the sharpness of a flavor which had been allowed to ripen for some time. It was nice, being served an in-trial snack.

Chrysalis basked in her surprise meal for a few seconds, and then found herself rather naturally looking at the stallion.

He was still smirking.

The rules said that she wasn't supposed to speak with anypony about the case. Not in the courthouse, not with her 'fellow' jurors until they'd been sent to deliberations. She absolutely was not allowed to read newspaper articles, and consulting anypony in the outside world was right out.

But those were merely rules, and they didn't apply to her.

Merry Suet was rather good at asking questions in complete innocence and with no visible comprehension of the answers. She was also decidedly visible, and so a succession of oddly-curious mares moved through the night, occasionally lowering themselves to reading.

The stallion in question... he had a way of switching names (not that any of them mattered). Fur dyes helped with his hues, and a never-ending succession of pants covered his most identifiable trait. He would establish credit as one pony, run up debts as all of them, and then refuse to pay any because somepony else had no obligation to do that. He conned, frauded, and robbed his way through life, apparently with no regrets for any of his actions. There were ways in which he would have made a rather good changeling, and none of those included what Chrysalis considered to be his complete lack of style.

And besides, he'd been caught. The good ones were never caught.

(The fact that she'd been caught was simply a one-time convergence of cosmic bad luck, and that sort of thing only ever targeted those who were great. After all, how could you be the best if you didn't have challenges to match? And being -- temporarily disenfranchised by inferiors just made for a better victory song at the end.)

However, there were some problems in connecting him to the charges. Yes, a pony of his rough appearance (once you adjusted for colors and minor facial appliances) had been at every site, but the defense was pointing out -- rather reasonably, as far as Chrysalis was concerned -- that quite a few ponies tended to look like each other. (Chrysalis, without t'fin'zi to distinguish members of the hive, tended to find ponies a confusing mass of colors, where facial features blended into each other: at least a few of her most hated opponents had the bare decency to be tall enough to be properly distinguished.) Voices could also be rather similar, and as for memorable turns of phrase -- ponies talked, so some of their words would overlap. Mouthwriting? Well, talking had already established that ponies had mouths, so when it came to similar styles...

It could be argued that it was a masterful defense. It took a true artist to paint with horse apples and not have the audience retreat from the smell.

The identity papers, used to establish leases, bank accounts, credit lines... those had been scattered across a series of abandoned apartments, ones where nearly all of the possessions (which might have seen a trivial down payment during a sale, and never saw another) had mysteriously vanished. Abandoned, because any identity which was that deeply in debt could never be used again. But they couldn't be connected to the stallion who was on trial, not in a way which fully proved anything. He'd been found near a just-abandoned location, he vaguely resembled all of the stallions who were being sought, he had a full assortment of fur dyes and claimed it was for his acting career...

And nopony could work out how so many true papers had gotten out into the world at all.

There had been enough circumstantial evidence to charge him. To reach trial. But it didn't seem to be enough to convict, which just proved how stupid pony justice was. When Chrysalis took over, guilt would be a matter of simple knowledge, with punishment taking over from the torture which was reading. And she would have punished him, because his lack of style was offensive. She knew he was smirking. He often smirked at her, because her disguise was the prettiest. But she didn't respond.

The other mares on the jury did, because they had mistaken smirk for smile. More proof of pony idiocy.

He was guilty. She knew it. She even knew the how. But when it came to the rest of the jury...

They followed the rules. They wouldn't talk to Merry, no matter how many times she'd offered to treat some of them to lunch. They wouldn't talk about the case with a strange mare they'd just met on the street: they just lowered their heads and hurried away. For the jury, she had to wait until deliberations began.

There were ways in which she could respect a fraud: she was a changeling, after all. The last true one. But it was about switching only when you had to, when it was most effective. About infiltration and blending in. Not creating a full trail of identities, something which could be tracked. And in a way, it was very much about style.

The stallion had no style. And she cared nothing for Equestrian justice... but that lack of style had to be punished.

The closing arguments took forever and in that, they still only required half the time which the lawyers had needed to determine who was going last. They had both seemed to feel that was the most crucial part of the case, they'd each been looking at Chrysalis' disguise when they'd declared it, and the defense had been rather smug about having won.

But the jury was in the deliberation room now. There was a water trough, and fruit. The benches had somehow become less comfortable. And they could finally all talk.

Chrysalis almost wondered what their names were.

"I'll start," said the forepony: a pegasus stallion, who'd won the honor simply for having been on the first bench. "I want to take a preliminary vote. If somepony would tear up this paper?" Somepony's corona flared. "Thank you. We'll start with the first fraud charge. Just write down 'Guilty' or 'Not Guilty', then pass it in to the center of the table as you explain your reasoning. Just a few words. That'll let us see where everypony stands before we get into the arguments." A quick smile. "Assuming we need to argue. Is everypony okay with that? One quick vote, non-binding unless we're unanimous?"

The group agreed, which included Chrysalis: she needed to see where the count stood. Glow passed out the scraps, and scribbling ensued.

"In order of our juror numbers," the forepony said after the last quill was set down again. "For me..." A wing awkwardly nudged the paper forward. "Not guilty. And it's going to be that way for me across the board. He really does look like a lot of stallions -- I guess that's useful for an actor -- and nopony's really been able to fully identify him as the culprit. Besides, how would he even get the papers? There's no connection, no route to the documents. It's enough for reasonable doubt."

"I feel the same way," declared #2, her field levitating the scrap towards the center of the table. "And he has such a nice smile..."

And with Chrysalis staring from behind the lighter stun of her disguise, the others agreed. Not guilty, one after the other. Eleven out of eleven.

"I think we've got an early weekend coming on," the forepony grinned. "Just one more --"

Her horn wasn't a unicorn one. It was, under the disguise, better than that, and so the paper, almost completely covered in slashes of furious ink, was shot into the pile.

"Guilty," Chrysalis declared. "On all counts and charges. And I'm going to tell you why --"

7 snorted.

"Oh, right," the earth pony mare sarcastically declared. "The one they brought in because they decided she'd believe anything decided to believe the wrong thing. What's wrong, dear? Got distracted by a passing bug as they led us out?"

Disguise and changeling blinked. "Were any of you paying attention? I know how he operates! I can tell you exactly what happened! If you just listen to me for five minutes --"

"-- I heard you for five minutes during voir dire," the forepony cut in. "You're a nice mare, Merry. But you're not smart. You made that very clear. Whatever you think you believe..." An exasperated sigh. "Eleven to one. All right: who's the sensible pony that can tell her how this actually works?"

"Don't you have a party later?" #3 casually suggested, clearly under the illusion that he was being clever. "Something more important than this? Wouldn't it be easier to just agree with us so we could all go out tonight? Given how many times you've tried taking me to lunch, I'm sure you wouldn't mind having me drop in. And the rest of the group could come!" A frantic glance around the huge table. "That's right, isn't it? Tell her that if she votes with us, we'll all go to her next party!"

"Merry," #8 tried, "you just have to see it the right way..."

"I order you to listen!"

She had meant to say it. She was a queen. She had to be obeyed.

"I order you," #7 snidely retorted, "to be smarter." The briefest possible pause. "Ooooh, too bad: didn't work. Okay, everypony: let's play Educate The Hackamore..."

That was when the arguments began, and all of them were directed at her: the one who was, according to one of the most insulting terms used by ponies, missing a bit from her mind's bridle. They debated. They used what they felt was logic. They cajoled, demanded, and too-frequently cursed.

But none of them ever let her speak.

None of them could listen.

Chrysalis fumed all the way to the twelfth and final bench. She had plenty of time in which to do so, and performed the action with the entire gallery watching her. She was the only one they could watch, for the other jurors had practically shoved her to the front, and remained in the hallway while she entered alone. A forced trot of shame, so that all would know who was to blame.

There was a fair amount of audience: it had built slowly over the course of the trial. Today, in addition to lawyers, defendant, and courtroom staff, it was a number of the frauded, a few members of the press, and more than a few of the previously-called witnesses and experts: Equestrian law occasionally allowed testimony to be directly reviewed, and much more infrequently would need that pony to be present for the occasion. It left a lot of ponies on standby or in this case, sitdown. Some were there in case they were needed again, and others just wanted to know how it would all come out.

But the disguise entered alone, and the glares eventually came in behind her. It provided something of a hint.

The judge took the slow breath of a pony who was about to ask a question. One which he already had the answer for, and it was an answer he didn't particularly like.

"Has the jury reached a verdict?"

"No, your honor," the forepony pushed out from between gritted teeth. "We still have a holdout. It's been two days and we still have a holdout."

A holdout who knew everything. A holdout who had the answer. But more than that: a queen. The last true queen.

Queens weren't ignored. Queens were never dismissed. Queens were obeyed. And it had been two days of just being treated like an ignorant pony, while every attempt she made to speak was shouted down at best, while her hunger built --

-- actually...

She inhaled, took the nourishment in through her kr'se'ra. It helped. But it was exactly the same as it had been before, and that meant it wasn't all it should have been. All her meal thought it was.

"I don't want to declare a hung jury," the judge said. "Not after only two days."

Only. When used to describe the duration of torture, it was a rather irritating word.

"You don't understand what we're up against," the forepony insisted. "She won't see reason. We're one vote away and --"

Chrysalis had lowered herself to reading -- but that irritating exercise had produced a degree of knowledge. She was almost entirely certain the forepony wasn't allowed to identify the holdout in any way, gender included. She was sure the next part wasn't allowed.

"-- if she just listens, then we're not the only ones who get to go home..."

The defendant confidently smirked. And from the gallery, there was just the slightest inhale of hope...

She had been ignored. Dismissed. Treated like an idiot, because she was the best at disguise and had cloaked herself in stupidity. An illusion nopony would let her break.

She'd. Had. Enough.

Chrysalis flew from the jury box, went over the edge of the confinement before anypony could truly react, past the prosecutor's table while the screams were still getting started, straight for the gallery and then into it. Right up to one particular mare, who'd never had a chance to move.

"He doesn't love you!"

The Records Office mare was helplessly staring at her. She liked helplessness in ponies. It made the courtroom feel a little more like home.

"Oh, you love him," Chrysalis added. "I know that. You went a little too long before you allowed yourself a first love, and that's why it's so sharp. But there's nothing coming back. He doesn't care about you at all. You're just somepony who can get into the master form room and bring out what he needs. And he'll keep lying to you for just as long as you're useful." She snorted. "No way into a fortress. Does anypony here know how fortress conversion works? You don't get a perfect office building out of it! There's unused spaces! Now if you're practical, you would just sniff out the old supply tunnels. The ones used to smuggle things in during sieges. Then you move up between the walls for a while, you come out near the cleaning supplies because that panel isn't sealed, and then --" Thoughtfully paused. "-- all right: I admit, after that, a touch of hypnosis helps. But him? He just went after you. And he gives you gifts to keep you happy, like that dress. But does he give you time? Does he tell you what he did with all of the money? Because there's no love, not from him to you. Only one flow channel, not two! He used you for the forms. Nothing more. He would have used anypony. And that's why he's guilty. It's also why he has no style. Because when you rely on something as chancy as seduction, if there's any chance that the pony you're seducing could break free --"

She would have thought of something then. It would have resonated within her. It might have changed her life.

But she'd already thought of something else.

She'd just flown from the jury box.

Merry Suet's body was hovering in front of the Records Office expert, and it was doing so between a pair of tattered wings.

The shocked gallery was beginning to recognize that. A few jurors were already screaming. The bailiffs had started to move --

"So," Chrysalis managed, already starting to plan her best way out past that many alerted ponies, mostly through wondering what it was, "case closed?"

-- but the Records Office mare beat them all to it.

She vaulted the little wooden barrier which had failed to shut the gallery section away and, with her target in both mind and sight, reached it quickly.

"You were using me? You said you loved me! You said as soon as you had enough money, you could start the charity and we'd leave Canterlot together, together forever and you were just using --"

The stallion, to his dubious credit, attempted to mount a defense. Most of it was verbal, and very little of that actually emerged because it can be rather difficult to form a coherent debate when an earth pony mare is kicking somepony in their no-longer-smirking face. What did get out in the form of recognizable words was along the lines of 'Just needed -- a few more -- cons!' The vast majority, however, more closely resembled "AAUUUGGH!" And a unicorn stallion being kicked into a pulp by a mare can be said to have many things, but to Chrysalis, the entries like Agony and Long Prison Sentence meant nothing next to the much more important Temporary-But-Complete Attention Of The Room.

Her horn ignited with its true hue, and she went right for the doors.

The well-rendered snout of a pegasus mare slowly poked its way out of the night shadows which filled the packing crate. (Chrysalis had insisted on a deluxe packing crate: something a little roomy, where the lingering scent indicated that it had once held exotic fruits on their way to the wealthiest of tables. A queen had to have standards.) Her chin hooked the soggy newspaper which had been floating across the near-river of the alley, then pulled it in out of the heavy rain. After a quick look around for witnesses, the horn which shouldn't have been there was allowed to ignite, and she reluctantly read by its glow.

It was offensive, really. "Mistrial." After all she'd done. Yes, the fact that the stallion had pretty much confessed during the kicking meant there wouldn't be another round, but she hadn't been given any of the credit. The countering fact that the ongoing hunt was entirely for her didn't feel like much of a consolation, especially with all of Merry Suet's assets seized and a full line of Guards around that house.

She settled in against the bottom of the crate, felt vibration against her chitin. Her chosen alley was fairly close to the Records Office, and the ground occasionally rumbled as each section of tunnel was successively collapsed.

It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. It certainly wasn't justice. And once the last true changeling queen had brought her subjects back to sanity and finally seized the conquest which was always meant to be hers, there were going to be some changes made. Permanent alterations to every facet of pony life, and that included the abolishment of the trial system. It was all part of the end of Princesses and the rule of a Queen. No more courtrooms. No more juries. No more being ignored.

The ground rumbled again. The false river rippled, and little waves lapped against her temporary home.

Oh, and just in case of rather unlikely future emergency, there were going to be waterproof crates. After all, a true leader planned ahead.